Want to Write a Guest Column? We're looking for folks who will work on a sliding scale -- from nothing to almost nothing -- for the satisfaction of seeing their opinions and observations, on issues small and large, expressed in print. We want passionate, well-written, well-reasoned, well-reported columns of about 750 words, which will pass our lawyer's libel test and, frankly, don't froth at the mouth. They should be on mostly local subjects, although we will delve into statewide, national and perhaps international subjects from time to time. Please don't send us self-promotional columns or ones that have been mass-mailed to editors around the country. If you have a column in mind, please contact editor Gayle Reaves at 817-321-9787 or gayle.reaves@fwweekly.com or 1204-B W. 7th St., Suite 201, Fort Worth, 76102.

Maybe I am a crackpot sentimentalist for remembering the first time I saw the Brazos River from the bridge near Tin Top and judging that moment against the view before me today. Parts of it looked different then, to someone who pays attention, and gives a damn. Others who can't or won't recognize the problems -- for whatever reason -- have consequently done little to stop the abuses. People don't create rivers, but they certainly affect them, by living and doing business along them. Wendy Lyons Sunshine's reporting ("Mud Wrestling," May 10, 2004) has brought more attention to the dire situation confronting the Brazos and those who share its fate.

In April, to make good on a longstanding commitment, I boarded a canoe with a dog named T-Bone to retrace the Brazos course John Graves took in writing his book Goodbye to a River-- knowing that I'd have to circumnavigate a dam built after his time and paddle through its lake beforehand, and curious about other changes Graves might not have canoed past because of his particular timing.

The dog and I entered the river below Possum Kingdom Dam, intent on finding and documenting not only that which had changed for the worse since Graves' time, but that which is changing for the better in ours. Two and a half weeks and nearly 200 miles later I would leave the river near Glen Rose, buoyed by a renewed spirit and faith in nature. And, having been on the river long enough to hear and understand its voice, more conscious than ever of the profound impact we continue to have on it. The positive changes, I realized, while less apparent on the river, are there in the people now trying to save it.

The canoe, the trip, and my words about the Brazos watershed are tempered by an understanding that its ecological well-being was compromised long before Graves or I came along, when the earliest settlers first began to alter its habitat. These country folk, to their defense, were often ignorant of conservation and the sustainable uses of land. We are not -- which nullifies our excuses for the devastations being wrought to this river by myriad activities, particularly those of the rock miners singled out in the Fort Worth Weekly article for their negligent, unregulated, and downright stupid practices. The catch is, we humans tend to abhor sharing -- a river, a toy, etc. -- and Texans in particular would rather claim part of the land, fence it off, guard it with a shotgun, and "by God, do whatever the hell is seen fit" with it, than work collectively to preserve it.

Consider those factors, then add these: the campers whose litter eventually filled every trash bag I'd packed; the fisherman whose unbaited trotline, strung down into the river from a tree limb, snared a great blue heron that would have flapped to death had I not paddled up; the lady bent over a beach, picking up trash deposited there from upriver with the last good wash; the hundreds of bricks dumped across the riverbed to make a better crossing for someone's pickup; the sheer river bank that became one man's junkyard 30 or more years ago, where scrap cars remain as ungainly planters for weeds and wildflowers; the housing developments, boats, and diminishing water levels; the paint-can graffiti defacing natural perfection; the golden algae blooms that have devastated fish populations in recent years.

On the river there is change all around, at once immediate and imperceptible, expected and avoidable. It is there in the faces of the people who have joined the riverside community in recent decades-- my fellow outdoorsmen and I, water skiers, wealthy horse people like Alice Walton, the Dallasites buying up the pristine escarpments looming above the river near Mineral Wells and crowning them with palatial weekend retreats.

If we are the result of 150 years of settlement and change along this river, then let us assume that responsibility, old river-users and new, for the sake of this living, vulnerable strip of water that links all of us. We can bitch and moan and do nothing, forgetting that we caused some of the change simply by enjoying the Brazos. Or we can speak out as many now are, forming conservation groups, observing and documenting wrongs, and writing letters or making phone calls to right them, to steer change on this river -- and others -- in the direction of sustainable development.

One night about a week into my trip, Eldon Whitley rolled up to my campsite on his four-wheeler, shirtless, big-bellied, and smiling, with a fat channel cat tied behind his seat. For the next hour we chatted about his 50 years on and off the river. Then, suitably acquainted, he began to tell me a story. As his characters came into focus, I recollected a story from my last reading of Goodbye to a River, a year before when I had been living in Spain, writing the first book I'd be ashamed of and first contemplating this trip.

Eldon's great-grandfather, Adam Whitley, along with his neighbor, Chesley Dobbs -- both early settlers on the river and namesakes of two bends outside Mineral Wells -- had been returning from town, horseback and laden with supplies, when a band of Comanche gave chase. Inspired by the nasty fate that losing such a race ensured, they spurred their mounts mercilessly and eventually outran the Comanche. They are said to have stopped, caught their breaths, had a good laugh, and praised the superiority of their horses before parting ways for home. The next morning -- after Mrs. Dobbs knocked on the Whitleys' door, worried sick that her husband had not returned the night before -- they realized that those Comanche, with their inferior horses, had caught up to Mr. Dobbs after all.

The outcome in the Whitley telling was the same as Graves', but nuances distinguished the two. Such is the case as each generation recounts the old stories, embellishing and degrading them, to make myths. The outcome of a river, though prone at each turn to the natural and regretful irresponsibility of mankind, is not as certain as the conclusion of a familiar story.

As I write this, a hand-scrawled letter from Mr. Graves, in reply to the long and ambitious one I'd sent him before departing, sits unopened on my desk. Superstitions of a hopeless writer prevent me from reading it until I've said what I have to say, and that letter is an incentive to do so. This is only the beginning for those of us determined to bring substantial, lasting ecological improvements to the Brazos. Just as Mr. Graves has done his part -- more than his part -- in preserving and recording this particular river at a certain point in time, and made it unique among Texas rivers by giving it a voice of clarity, knowledge, and affection, so must we continue that cause for later generations who will live to write about the Brazos, from Possum Kingdom to Lake Whitney and beyond. If we have done our job properly, they will have nothing but positive words for it in their time. Otherwise the river, like its stories, will have become just another myth.

Kelly Lipscomb is an independent Texas writer who knows some and cares a lot about his native state.